Bob Dylan Nobel Prize & Johnny Cash in The New Yorker

[Achebe]

no one deserves it more than Dylan. . . ever. in fact, they should just rename it to the Bob Dylan Prize and just award it to him every year.
and as to anyone on this forum can write better poetry. . . the prize is for literature for a start and secondly. . . no one on this site can write better poetry than Dylan. a poem here or there may be better than this or that Dylan lyric, but that is incidental.

OK, enough with the hagiography. Here's one of Dylan's 'celebrated' lyrics. Just the first stanza. If it'd been written by Nkrame Karabakh of Torino, it'd be tossed in the dustbin. I won't get into the details of why he's the poster boy of what hype can do for you if you're a pedestrian if influential 60s American singer (at least Woody Guthrie was genuine and Dylan's contemporary Joan Baez had a beautiful voice), but I challenge you to back up your claim with a truly good poem written by this laureate of laureates.

"Masters Of War"

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.


If that doesn't make you cringe...

"Just like a woman"

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.